Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Never imagine Toronto's anyting but a Midwestern city: a family needs a car to do anything at all. So... I'll be joining the bastards, but with ONE car only. I am buying a new car, in cash. Yes, I can buy someone else' problems cheaper, but I just don't want to. I am staying under $35K CAD, paying in cash.

What I need is room for two adults and two children, for the next eight to ten years, reliable and good build quality for the price, and drives more like a car than a boat. What I want is a third-row seat no matter how small, sliding rear doors, AWD for our winters, cruise-control and a few other options. Have to get a fucking automatic for the wife.
Here're the 'crossovers' prices*, all with AWD otherwise what's the point, best to worst value:

Kia Sorrento LX turbo AWD

- third row seats option

- AWD

- decent mileage

- best transmission (6-speed auto)

- best engine (hp/torque)

- $32500

Mitsubishi Outlander SE AWC

- third row seats option

- AWD

- decent mileage

- best transmission (6-speed auto)

- best engine (hp/torque)

- $32000/37000**

Nissan Rogue SV AWD

- third row seats option

- AWD

- best mileage

- CVT transmission (feh)

- excellent safety features

- $31500

Here're the 'small minivan' prices, best to worst value:

Kia Rondo LX AT 7-seat

- third row seats

- no sliding rear doors

- no AWD option

- not CVT transmission (yeah!)

- $22300

Mazda 5

- third row seats

- sliding rear doors

- no AWD option

- CVT transmission (feh)

- mediocre safety features

- $26300

For 'crossoers; it is between the Outlander and the Rogue, as I just cannot yet sign on with Korean cars at the same price, much less convince the J-wife. However, if we cheap out, too bad about losing the sliding doors, but the Rondo's much better value than the Mazda5!

*AWD/third-row option included if noted. Prices right off Canadian websites, taxes, fees and rebates included. Mileage may vary.**$32K for 2015, $37 for 2016

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

It lives! My Franken-bike creation: breeder-touring/monster-cross. AKA, 'The Beast'. The final iteration? Proves the truth of evolution: 'survival of the most adequate'. That's a Blackburn Co-Pilot Limo child seat. The recline's nice, as the young tend to pass out in motion. Previous write-up follows.

A new build up from new and old parts. It's my take on the 'gravel mutt' idea: build a wide-tired rough roads bike as reasonably as possible from your parts bin. Between the three bikes I have, I've now rebuilt almost every section of a bike, a few times.The bike's been useful, if heavy. My wife gave me the money for it as a present in return for her engagement ring: Japanese custom is to give half-back gifts, yeah! It's been a fixed/free, singlespeed and a 1x5. I learned enough from it about fixed/free to buy and build a lighter fixed/fixed, and that singlespeed is pointless. As I have a paved- 'road bike'; this will be my unpaved road, and winter conditions bike.It's not as economical as 'off the peg', but it is more economical than letting what I had go to waste, besides I wanted to keep the bike my wife bought for me, in some identifiable form. A friend told me a Canadian Air Force story: you can crash and destroy every part of a plane but it's identification plate, and there's money in the budget to rebuild it, but there's no money in the budget to buy a new plane, even if that comes cheaper.Since all that is left original is the following, it's a 'tour-mutt':- touring frame and fork- Brooks B17N saddle, seatpost and clamp- headset and stem- Tektro brake levers and rear low-profile cantilever brake - Shimano pedals, one side clipless and one flats- budget racksI repurposed:- the triple crank from my Lemond Croix de Fer, and its 26t chainring- its Shimano 105 triple derailleur (used now as wide-range double)- a 44t chainring from my fixed/fixed- 37mm Schwalbe Silento tires from my wife's bike (gave her better rolling ones for pavement)- parts to make a Shimano 105, 10-speed, 12-27 cassette - downtube cable-stops

- Arundel Stainless bottle cages

I bought for it... too much:- Nitto Noodle Bar- tektro cross bar-top levers- a high-profile cantilever brake for better stopping power, front - Dia-Compe bar-cons- Tiagra rear derailleur (without indexed shifting you can mix 9 speed rear and 10 speed front derailleurs)- 10-speed Shimano 105 chain- Mavic A319 rim, Deore hub wheelset - SKS P50, 700x54mm 'chromoplastic' fenders- cables and housing as needed- orange cotton bar-tape, shellacked- a 50t cross chainring guardThe build was epic in its delayed pace, back-tracking, reverse-engineering, and international sourcing (Canada, Japan and the US). I could nearly start a business in bikes, if only there were any living in aught but schilling carbon 'dentist bikes'.It will see use on local unpaved roads, and winter conditions, and I hope further afield. Maybe even to pull kids in a trailer, as the cross brake levers begin to make it safer to do so. There's room in that fork of 55mm: I could run 47mm tires for very poor road, so long as I push the fenders higher.But bike wants are "n+1 , where n is the number of bikes currently owned." +1 is a 29+ semi-fat, like the SurlyKrampus, or 'Ops' version.

Saturday, 25 July 2015

Having trouble with an LG Smart TV: cannot update the built in browser to cooperate as it used to with Google Drive.

Short version: 'Smart' products are not built by or for operating systems like Windows, Android or Apple. They have limited functionality out of the box, and are far harder to optimize than a phone, tablet or computer, or they are impossible to, and the interfaces blow. Better you run your online media from the appropriate device by cable/Wifi-dongle to a dumb TV. This is the experience with my TV, and I have read it similar for cars and other consumer products.

LG customer service has been useless, as all corporations' are. In short, I have discovered we can't load any browsers or apps of our own choice, nor update the ones we have. Who knows if any update automatically?

Tuesday, 21 July 2015

I was so excited to see this on my friend's street the other day. More excited his (married) friend knew what it was. Why didn't I know girls like that a couple decades back?*

This is a cool thing that'll make sense to anyone with a passing knowledge of Japanese shaken/road-tax byzantine rules: the Wankel engine was to get higher power while paying only for a lower displacement. Do you think engineers were allowed to use something as mental, and self-destructive, as a Wankel engine for a better reason?

Behold the spinning Dorito.

*Earlier in the evening I not only discovered she was another Montréal Anglo refugee, and was bored to death in Toronto, but when I asked the room what the typical Toronto date question was that showed how boring and materialistic people are, she knew: "What do you do?"

Sunday, 19 July 2015

I consider myself a native or two cities, Toronto and Tokyo, although the pur laine of the latter wouldn't, and I have neither pride in nor love of Toronto. I have spent not less than five years in each, which was more than enough in the Middle Ages to be a citizen! Funny, I spent about four years in total in Montréal, which I prefer to the other two, though neither I nor franco-montréalais would consider me a citizen. The ethnolingual parsing of these some other time.

We are in the middle of the Pan-American Games in Toronto! I care no more than you do! Torontonians care little more than I do. This is a good thing! A great deal of money's been wasted, but a great deal less than for the Olympics (1:4 compared to London), which the usual suspects (developers-politicians-criminals) have been after getting for years. It's been so unpopular, now they won't!